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Companies controlled by Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich donated tens of millions of pounds to a highly controversial group of Israeli settlers accused of displacing Palestinian families from Jerusalem, according to leaked documents seen by BBC News Arabic.
The billionaire Russian oligarch, who was granted Israeli citizenship in 2018, has been an avid philanthropist in Israel, donating huge sums for research and development projects and investing in local businesses.
However, four companies it owns or controls in the British Virgin Islands have contributed more than $ 100 million (£ 74 million) to Elad, a group that supports settlements in the Palestinian neighborhood of occupied East Jerusalem called Silwan, reported BBC News. Arabic.
Those figures would mean that the owner of the British football club was the biggest donor in the last 15 years to Elad, a Hebrew word that means “eternal faith of God,” he added.
The group, which also has the backing of the Israeli government, has sought to strengthen the Jewish presence in the Silwan neighborhood at the expense of its Arab residents.
Elad runs an archaeological site in Silwan called the City of David that has become a major tourist attraction. The excavation has been criticized by European Union diplomats for attempting to ignore the diverse history of the ancient city in favor of “an exclusively Jewish narrative, while separating the site from its Palestinian surroundings.”
The City of David website said it is “committed to continuing the legacy of King David, as well as revealing and connecting people to the glorious past of ancient Jerusalem through four key initiatives: archaeological excavation, tourism development. , educational programming and residential revitalization “.
Elad, like other settler organizations, has expanded by buying Palestinian houses and using controversial Israeli laws that allow the state to seize Palestinian property. Roughly 450 settlers now live alongside nearly 10,000 Palestinians in Silwan.
BBC News Arabic discovered Abramovich’s donations while reviewing thousands of leaked documents detailing $ 2 trillion (£ 1.55 trillion) of potentially corrupt transactions that were swept up in the US financial system.
More than 2,000 Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) filed with the US government’s Financial Crime Enforcement Network (FinCEN) were leaked to Buzzfeed News, which shared them with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, of which the BBC is a member.
Banks and other financial institutions file SARs when they believe a customer is using their services for possible criminal activity. While a SAR by itself does not force a bank to stop doing business with the customer in question, it points to contentious actions hidden in the financial world.
The leaks, dubbed the FinCEN Archives, have already rocked the financial sector, with accusations of dirty money flowing freely around the world. Shares in the banking sector fell on Monday. Other high-profile figures, such as former Trump political strategist Paul Manafort, have also been identified in a SAR.
The BBC report did not say whether the Abramovich companies or donations were included in a SAR, nor did it accuse Abramovich or the companies of breaking the law in any country. Abramovich had been the subject of a 2016 SAR on offshore shell companies related to his soccer business.
In their report, aired on their flagship program Panorama, BBC Arabic quoted Elad as saying that they comply with all Israeli non-profit organization regulations, but would not confirm whether Abramovich was a donor.
The news channel quoted a spokesperson for Abramovich as saying: “[he] is a committed and generous supporter of Israeli and Jewish civil society, and over the past 20 years has donated more than half a billion dollars to support Jewish healthcare, science, education and communities in Israel and around the world ”.
Settlement activity on occupied land is considered illegal under international law. Israel maintains that all of Jerusalem is its sovereign territory, although that claim is largely unrecognized.
Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel has emboldened the Israeli government and the powerful settler movement. The US Ambassador to Israel and a vocal supporter of the settlements, David Friedman, participated in an opening ceremony in the City of David.
